A Quick But Reoccuring Thought

If you have siblings, like me, do you think you treat them differently? I've been thinking about it a lot and I've noticed how I have less patience with my younger sister Kayla then I have with most people. I'm just more likely to brush her aside sometimes and say whatever comes out. It's like there's no filter with her around. This can sometimes be good, and sometimes bad. I'm wondering why it's like this though! Is it because I've just been around her my whole life? So I don't care what she knows? But I know that she can be sensitive but that doesn't stop me froming ignoring her when she talks to me or telling her to go away more than I should.... Hm. Do you treat your siblings differently then you treat others? Is your filter turned off too?! Leave a comment (: Hopefully when Autumn rolls around, you all will start commenting again!!

Song stuck in my head today: "Here Comes My Baby" by Sons of Admirals (!)

Keep on keepin' on,

Madison

I'm Back On Track- Literally

I started running again this Monday, because I need to get back in shape if I have any chance of trying out for my high school's soccer team and I just felt lazy not doing it. Track ended for me in early June so it's been a good two months since I've stepped foot on a track and it's not easy to start it up again! My sister and I are trying to get some laps in every day so we can get back in shape. I'm not saying that I'm fat! I just feel lazy. It's been going pretty well, I've missed a couple days because of parties and things like that but besides that I guess it's okay. After we went running one day though, I started to get really upset. And on the walk home I talked to my sister about it for a while. You see, I have this thing about pushing myself. I can't do it. It's so hard for me to get myself to do things, even finishing up this blog posts took some days to do. I explained this to my sister, and surprisingly, she understood! We talked for a while about it and she made a couple references to Nickelodeon's greener Earth campaign "The Big Help". She said, "I understand Maddie, how it's hard to get yourself to do everything you want. Think of The Big Help. They want to you to be kind to others, get a good education, make a difference in the world, and go green! That's a lot to do!". That's really the story of my life. I dream big and never try to accomplish it. I rarely stick with things, and want to do everything. I need help! I'm not sure how to go about doing what I want to get done, and to keep myself motivated. Anyone got any tips? Hopefully when the school year rolls around, (one month! Yikes!), it'll present me with an extra clean slate (since I'm starting a whole new school) that I can organize and fill up with opportunities. Maybe I should check out The Big Help online... think they'll have ideas and tips?! I've tried writing down lists of small goals I'd like to accomplish during the day, but that's very short-lived... Help!

This is a quote I kept finding when I Googled laziness... not sure what to make of it yet. I don't think it really pertains to me 'cause I need to keep running! :P

This person had a lot to do...

Maybe if I start making my To Do lists more colorful I'll get them done??!

Song stuck in my head today: "Magic (feat. Rivers Cuomo)" by B.o.B

Keep on keepin' on,

Madison

Try Something New!

Last week, I went to this amazing grocery store that I'm lucky enough to have nearby with my aunt, and I found something really interesting that I've never heard of before- cactus pear. For only 69¢ my aunt and I decided to just get it. When we got home, my aunt skinned the pear (with much difficulty) and sliced the fruit into mushy strips. We tried some of the magenta seedy substance and then realized that maybe we should do some homework on it before we ate anymore because they were SO many seeds we weren't sure if we could eat them or not and she wanted to know the proper way to cut it because she basically butchered the thing! Wikihow was very helpful in explaining the proper way to eat a prickly pear cactus and we learned a lot about the exotic southern fruit. The prickly cactus pear is grown in parts of South America and Mexico. It grows on a big cactus called napoles and the fruit and the cactus can be used for many different things. The (edible) seeds of the prickly pear cactus can be used for flour or soup, the skin can be used for jams, jellys, and candies and the actual fruit has many uses (the most common seemed to be the sorbet which I can't wait to try!). I definitely think if you have 69¢ to spare you should try the prickly pear cactus! It tasted like a strawberry and watermelon combined and while you might find the seeds annoying to eat, at least you can eat them! Because I learned the hard way that trying to eat prickly pear cactus while spitting out the seeds proves to be extremely difficult!

I'm dying to try prickly pear cactus sorbet but they only seem to sell it in faraway places near Phoenix!

After having fun trying the prickly pear cactus, my aunt and I decided to try a different fruit every week together. So this week (since I picked last week) I had my sister, Kayla, pick the fruit. She never had mango so that's what we settled on. But the store's selection of mangoes weren't ripe enough to eat right away and we were really looking for something we could eat right when we got home. With a little help from a kind employee we discovered the champagne mango. I was really excited of our new discovery because my aunt and I had both had mango but not champagne mango so now everyone was trying something new! We got home and with our knowledge from the prickly pear cactus experience, decided to Google the champagne mango eating instructions first. It turns out they have their own website! Simply and easy: champagnemango.com. I believe from what I read, the champagne mango resulted of a random cross breed between other types of mangoes. The champagne mango tasted good, but not as sweet as I expected it to be after reading about it online. It reminded me of the canned peaches, the ones I used to eat when I was younger... I think they were the Dole jarred peaches...

This is how you're supposed to cut a champagne mango, but it's much harder than it looks!

I really like our new tradition of trying a new fruit each week, it's really fun and you can learn a lot of new things! If you're not the type of person to try things a lot, I really hope you change your mindset! You never know until you try. :)

By the way- thanks to Blogger's new feature you can know simply check off what you thought of my post! Was it cool? Pointless? Or inpsiring?! Just scroll down to the bottom of the post and click the little check box of whatever your feelings were! Hopefully you readers will take a liking to that because I've noticed a lack of commenting and I really love your feedback! Thanks to the mystery reader who checked off 'inspiring' for my "A Look In The Mirror Helps The Medicine Go Down" post! It made me smile.

Song stuck in my head today: "Untouchable" by Taylor Swift

Keep on keepin' on,

Madison